10 Things You Need to Know For the Waste & Recycling Industry Today (July 28, 2014)

To Upgrade New York City's Garbage, Suck It “Today, all of New York City’s waste goes out of state, including to places as far away as Ohio and South Carolina. The environmental impacts—not least from barge and truck emissions—are huge. Juliette Spertus, an architect and co-founder of the sustainability consultancy ClosedLoops, argues that waste is an urban flow that would benefit from urban design expertise. But designers don’t tend to think about waste; it is an afterthought in the design of our buildings and cities. According to Spertus, somehow we’ve become adept at environmental remediation but we don’t yet know how to design for waste flows.” (Motherboard.vice.com)

Diageo Purchases Natural Gas Sourced from Landfill “Diageo, a wine, beer and spirits company, expanded its commitment to purchase natural gas in Canada from Bullfrog Power. Diageo extended its existing commitment to purchase natural gas for its Gimli, Manitoba, facility and will also now purchase natural gas for its Valleyfield, Quebec, location. Both facilities are committed through 2016.” (Energy Manager Today)

Garbage trucks could run on Napa's food waste “Napa residents could soon see their thrown-out scraps of food and soiled napkins transformed into fuel used to power Napa Recycling & Waste garbage trucks. A recently awarded $3 million state energy grant could offer Napa the capital it needs to build its very own anaerobic digester. The equipment would harness the methane produced from decomposing food scraps and covert it into fuel for the city’s garbage trucks. Such efforts would make Napa a national leader.” (Napa Valley Register)

Waste haulers want chance to bid for Manatee County contracts estimated at $140 million “Several companies interested in bidding on Manatee County's solid waste hauling business, estimated to be worth $140 million over a multi-year term, fear they will not get the chance. County officials propose renewing the contracts with their two current waste haulers, rather than an arrangement in which bidding would be thrown open to all companies.” (Bradenton Herald)

Feds weigh in on Bridgeton Landfill concerns “A branch of the Centers for Disease Control is now weighing in on the radioactive West Lake Landfill and the neighboring Bridgeton Landfill after a recent report from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health raised concerns for firefighters near the landfills. The report was done at the request of the firefighters' union because some feel there are still too many unknowns on the other side of this fence. The report found, among other things, the wastes at the landfills have been poorly defined.” (KSDK.com)

Court Cases Could Come Down to the Wire for Coal Ash Landfill Opponents “It’s the 11th hour for opponents of a coal ash landfill planned less than an hour away from St. Louis. ‘My thought is, we’re in a better place than ever right now to actually stop this landfill,’ says Patricia Schuba, President of the Labadie Environmental Organization.  As of this week, the group’s four year legal battle now sits in two courts:  a circuit court basically being asked to rule on whether Ameren Corporation’s plans to store the byproduct of burning coal, violate a Franklin County ordinance on contact with groundwater; and the Missouri supreme court, asked by an appellate panel to rule on whether citizens were given fair hearings at the very start of the process.” (CBS St. Louis)

Railcars for hauling LI trash mistakenly sent to NJ, officials say “Railcars that were supposed to be delivered to Long Island last week to haul away stockpiled municipal garbage were sent to the wrong state, further delaying the removal of an estimated 5,000 tons of waste, officials said. The railcars were sent to New Jersey instead of Brentwood, where the garbage will be loaded, said Emily DeSantis, a spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, which regulates the garbage industry.” (Newsday)

Pennsylvania Resources Council puts hazardous materials in their place “People have turned in more than 4 million pounds of hazardous chemicals since the Pennsylvania Resources Council began collecting them 11 years ago. ‘What they are doing is tremendous. It is a great public service,’ said John Poister, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. The council does not know exactly how much its work has improved the condition of landfills, wastewater and stormwater.” (TribLive.com)

23 West Virginia towns, county commissions, solid waste authorities get litter control grants “The state Department of Environmental Protection has awarded more than $54,000 in grants for litter control programs to 23 communities, county commissions and solid waste authorities in West Virginia. Funding for the program is generated through circuit court penalties for littering.” (The Republic)

DHEC wants to replace company managing Pinewood hazardous-waste landfill “The state's environmental department wants the management company for a closed hazardous waste dump at Lake Marion to resign, citing dissatisfaction with some of the firm's expenditures. Kestrel Horizons was hired to monitor and oversee the dump so that toxic chemicals don't leak into groundwater and trickle into the popular reservoir southeast of Columbia near Sumter.” (TheState.com)